Toyota moves to dismiss Koua Fong Lee lawsuit from '06 crash

Koua Fong Lee, left, and his wife, Panghoua Moua, react after hearing that charges against him were dropped, Thursday, August 5, 2010. (Pioneer Press: Ben Garvin)

Attorneys for Toyota Motor Corp. have moved in federal court to throw out lawsuits by victims of a deadly St. Paul crash who say it was caused by a defective Camry.

Toyota argued in motions filed Monday that the testimony of a plaintiffs' expert witness is not admissible. The company also said the plaintiffs missed the deadline to file claims, based on the four-year statute of limitations. Plaintiffs also "failed to develop specific facts showing that (Toyota) fraudulently concealed the alleged defects," defendants argued.

And a claim that Toyota failed to provide warnings of its problems with sudden unintended acceleration should be thrown out because the driver "did not know if his Camry came with an owner's manual, or ... could not have understood its contents because of limited ability to understand English," the defendants' motions argued.

On June 10, 2006, a Camry driven by Koua Fong Lee crashed into the back of an Oldsmobile Ciera at Concordia and Snelling avenues. Two people in the Oldsmobile, including a 9-year-old child, died instantly. Another child in the Oldsmobile was left a quadriplegic and died the next year at age 7.

Lee was charged with criminal vehicular homicide. He testified at trial that he was trying to brake but that the brakes did not work. A jury convicted him and he was sentenced to eight years in prison. The conviction was later thrown out and Lee was freed after Toyota's sudden-acceleration problems were brought before a Ramsey County judge.

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Victims of the crash, including Lee, sued in 2010. They alleged design defect, failure to warn, breach of warranty, negligence, fraud/misrepresentation and (in the case of next-of-kin) wrongful death.

One of the plaintiffs' experts, mechanical engineer John Stilson, opined that the cruise control of the 1996 Camry was defectively designed in a way that could cause the throttle to "stick."

He also said alternative designs existed that could have prevented the accident.

In its motions Monday, Toyota and related defendants argued that Stilson formed his opinions "using scientifically unreliable methods and unfounded extrapolations from the facts and data he considered."

"We expected these types of motions from the beginning, so the fact that these motions have been filed are no surprise," Padden said. He said he expects U.S. District Judge Ann Montgomery to deny them.